The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), America’s largest Protestant denomination, made history June 19 when it elected the Rev. Fred Luter its president, the first black leader in the SBC’s 167-year existence. Luter was chosen in his native New Orleans, where the SBC was meeting for its annual denominational conference, and where Luter pastors Franklin Avenue Baptist Church.

A small Texas town has taken a bold stand for prayer and patriotism. CBS News reported that on June 12 the city council of Weatherford, a west-central Texas community, voted four to one to bring back the tradition of a regular invocation, as well as the Pledge of Allegiance to both the state and U.S. flags, following a 37-year absence of the rituals.

In yet another victory for the forces of politically correct insanity, voters in North Dakota voted to dump the mascot of the University of North Dakota (UND). The Fighting Sioux are no more.

According to the Bismarck Tribune, more than 67 percent of voters approved of Measure 4, a ballot initiative that ended the long struggle between the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and its supporters, on the one hand, and those who love and revere the formidable-looking Indian logo the school has used for many moons.

Fifty years ago, on June 15, 1962, the radical left-wing SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) issued their Port Huron Statement opposing capitalism, eschewing American "ethnocentrism," promoting socialism, federal control of education, foreign aid, and surrendering our sovereignty to the United Nations — themes familiar to those who listen to our President today.

Notorious abortion purveyor Planned Parenthood is partnering with the Los Angeles public school district to place school-based “health” clinics in the city’s high schools, reported the Los Angeles Times. While birth rates in Los Angeles have been falling over the past several years, mirroring the drop statewide, there are still areas in the county where teen birth rates are high, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. “The heavily Latino and low-income neighborhood around Roosevelt High School is one of them,” reported the Times, which is why the Los Angeles Unified School District has invited Planned Parenthood to set up shop there.

A New York City principal caused quite a stir when she banned a patriotic song from being performed at a kindergarten graduation ceremony, and opted instead for a pop-culture hit, asserting she did not want to offend other cultures. Though her decision angered local residents and parents, the New York City Board of Education has now come to her defense, prompting a great deal of debate over political correctness in the school system.

Greta Hawkins, principal at P.S. 90 Edna Cohen School in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn, found herself in some hot water with parents after she asked teachers to remove the song “God Bless the USA” by Lee Greenwood from the program for the kindergarten graduation ceremony. According to school staff, Hawkins said she was afraid that such a song might “offend other cultures.” Instead, she opted to have Justin Bieber’s hit song “Baby” played during the ceremony.

A pair of academic studies is raising a challenge to the notion that children raised by “gay” parents fare as well as kids raised in traditional homes with a mother and father. Both studies were published in the journal Social Science Research.